Vanguard Employee Reviews about "people"

Pros

If you are new to finance, specifically investment management, this is a good entry-level job to start your career All Series 7 and Series 63 licenses are paid for by the company. They pay you to go through the education to get these licenses. For further development, things like the CFA and CFP certifications, they'll pay for it if you're accepted into their corporate programs. Great healthcare benefits 401k match is nice, up to 4% and an additional quarterly 401k bonus match People here are friendly and they actually want to do what's ethically right for the client.

Cons

It's a call center environment, why do you think expenses on the mutual funds are so low. Brick and mortar companies can't compete. Pay is below industry average. I had friends who quit and went to competitors who paid $20,000 more. So get the experience here and jump ship. To move up, it's going to take more than meeting your performance metrics, you better be good at networking. You better schmooze the right team leaders for the next promotion or department you want to move into. This is finance, everything you do to move up is networking, which may suck because if you're a high performer on your team, the hiring manager for a promotion may not hire you just because they don't like you or can't connect with you. So you better have so great people skills.

Pros

Vanguard is a company that is at the top of the industry. It has great training programs and often gives people the ability to get their licenses. Moving up is tricky and political but overall it's a great place to start. Benefit packages are also pretty nice along with partnership, once you've gained enough tenure, you share the profits with the company.

Cons

Pay is not competitive, and it's a ultraconservative environment. They have no regard for their employees in the institutional call center, but I guess that's like everywhere else, right?

Pros

Company culture is great and a lot of room for growth as people are always willing to help you.

Cons

No negatives really, great workplace.

Pros

Not many pros. Most of the people there are nice and don't take their job to seriously either.

Cons

Horrible pay and PTO. Extremely limited career mobility.

Pros

Good position for job longevity & life balance with working spouse & kids The people you work with are good intentioned and are striving to do the right thing. It pays dividends for work satisfaction and the company’s success.

Cons

Leadership micromanages to meet metrics. Frequent meeting agendas around metrics rather than peer driven development is outdated, and doesn’t lead to positive long term results. Returning to office is a misstep with PAS far separated from the rest of the company. The pre-COVID culture mixing with Vanguard crew from different divisions is gone with the company’s locations divided. It makes RTO an inconvenience with little benefit.

Pros

Vanguard provides great job security, benefits, and work/life balance. The people that work there are very friendly overall and the company is very reputable.

Cons

While benefits and work/life balance is wonderful, the pay is terrible. If you want to make a decent salary you must work there for at least 10+ years. While growth in the company is possible, it is very political and competitive. It is great that there are so many talented and smart employees, however, if you're not on someones "good side" and have your manager push for you behind the scenes it's unlikely you will be promoted, even if qualified for a role.

Pros

It has a laid back atmosphere and the people that I work with are great.

Cons

Not enough recognition. You could work hard, show up on time, never call out, and do everything like you're supposed to do, and you still won't get promoted over someone who has been there longer (even if they are late and sit on the internet for most of the day).

Pros

Good come any and opportunity

Cons

Really low pay and doesn't compensate enough for people with advanced degree such as MBA or CFA

Pros

Great entry point into a career in finance. Learned a lot about mutual funds, ETFs, stocks, brokerage ops, etc. Solid 401k. Sponsors series 7.

Cons

Pay was well bellow industry average. Work was non stop every day back to back call center environment. Every second of your day was micromanaged and if you are out of adherence you are spoken to. Problems persisted even after working on 'projects' to help alleviate issues. Really the project was busy work to make you feel like you had some sort of impact. Promotions are given to people that can regurgitate the Vanguard mission and drink the kool aid. As a result the company has become an echo chamber for increasingly disconnected management to try to lower costs as much as possible, while forgoing any meaningful process of brining the company to the 21st century. Vanguard at once was one of the most innovative companies in finance. Now they are a very slow moving behemoth that reacts to the changing winds with the speed and urgency of internet explorer. (When I was there internet explorer was the only browser allowed but I think that has changed) The company implemented 'new ways of working' which was really just the old way with more micromanagement and barriers. As a result phone queues were 1 hour plus and we were told these were 'growing pains.' The queues remained like this for about 2 years, of course exacerbated by covid-19. As a result turnover became ridiculous and people were jumping the burning ship faster than they could hire. Which made things even worse. Training isn't great either so you have a bunch of new people with little to know idea what they are doing.

Pros

good people to work with overall and everyone (or at least most people) understands that client comes first.

Cons

Internal opportunities are not awarded based on merit, but how long you have been in the company for, if you are a male or female (female preferred) or not, and how well you can play your cards.